


Living in the Currents

by crusherccme



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Homophobia, Past Kent Parson/Jack Zimmermann, Post 3.26, Sad Kent Parson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 05:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13207014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crusherccme/pseuds/crusherccme
Summary: Still living in the currents you createStill sinking in the pool of your mistakesWon't you stop firing up the crazies?





	Living in the Currents

**Author's Note:**

> I had so many feelings about 3.26 that I decided to try to write something. This is un-beta'd so I have no idea how coherent it is. Title is from The Currents by Bastille, a rather fitting song. Enjoy!

Sometimes Kent wishes he could have the words to articulate what he feels when he wakes up aching. Maybe if he could name this unknown hurt it would lessen it, something about the power of names and all that. And maybe he was smart, once upon a time, but he never went to college and hockey was more important that high school, so now he’s hockey smart and not much else.

He can’t remember the last time he went a day without this heaviness in his chest. Some might call it a result of some sort of trauma, but is it really trauma when you can’t remember a single second of it? Did it ever really happen? After all, the past is only as it lives in people’s memories.

Maybe it has something to do with Jack— no, Zimms, it has to be Zimms. Kent knows, factually, that he’s the one who found him, who called for help, but he can’t remember it. How can you hurt for something you have no memory of?

But he has no words to express all this, after all he’s not the one with a fancy college degree, and so he carries on in silence.

He knows that one day this is going to catch up to him, that one day his walls will crumble and the black sludge entombed within his mind will seep out to taint everything he touches with wrongness. But what else can he do but go on? Armed with a smirk and some snark, he weaves a cloak of misdirection that no one cares to look behind.

When he was wrecked by Jac— Zimms’ indifference, by his dismissal of everything that was between them and how it had been his everything, a sly comment and everyone knew he was actually wrecked by their shootout loss. After all, he’s Kent Parson, Mr. Hockey, Captain America, so what else could he possibly be upset about?

His life is a game of smoke and mirrors and now is no different. He finally tears his eyes from the screen of Scraps’ phone. He takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders, affixes a smirk firmly into his face. He is Kent Parson and he is not gay. He’s just married to hockey. Obviously.

“Looks like Zimmermann managed to score in more ways than one then,” he offers to the crowd, to his team, and is met with chuckles. Carly pats him on the shoulder and moves down the bar, likely to find Smithy to trade some more overtly homophobic comments.

“You didn’t know?” asks Scraps.

“No, of course not. How would I? It’s not like he came on to me or anything.” And he didn’t, he really didn’t. Kent had come on to him, and wasn’t that a mistake. It was always him, always him pushing, pushing, pushing. Maybe he pushed Jack right off the deep end.

“You know,” Swoops says, butting into the conversation, “the kid kind of looks like a mini-you. Maybe Zimmermann wanted to tap that fine ass of yours but had to settle for you-junior instead. What a fucking creep.”

Ouch. He didn’t need the reminder that Ja— Zimms had replaced him with a warmer, nicer version of himself, someone that he could never be. And it made his heart pound at how close they were to the truth.  
There were a million rumors out there, because as careful as they were nothing could hide the way they looked at each other. Or maybe it was how Kent looked at Jack and he had only imagined Jack looking back.

He will deny their past to his grave because what else can he possibly do? God knows his team’s not the Falconers and this city’s not New England. He may be the Captain but that doesn’t mean much here. Even Gretzky got traded so there’s really no hope for him.

So he grits his teeth, smirk in place, and says as his stomach bubbles with bile, “Definitely a creep. We’re gonna have to clean the cup with bleach when we take it from them next year.”

He joins in the laughter, because what else can he do. Checking the time, he says his goodbyes and takes his leave. He stayed long enough that no one will think anything of his departure, why would they? And if they do, it’s obviously just because he wanted that to be them on the ice hoisting the cup. Nothing about them kissing on the ice, nope.

He drives home to his apartment in silence, Britney just a bit too much tonight and anything else a million times worse, and pushes away the cold tendrils of fear for just a bit longer, just until he’s home and no one is there to see.

No one greets him at the door because Kent Parson doesn’t get to have nice things, but he finds Kit curled up on his bed so he lies down next to her. Her purrs feel soothing against his chest but do nothing to lift the weight anchored there.

Why does Zimms get to come out on center ice and leave him here alone? They were supposed to do this together, and he’s not the one who fucked up his life but still Zimms has it all while he’s the one who still struggles with remembering that he’s allowed to exist.

And it’s not like he can come out himself. His team has more than shown him that over the years. But now with Zimms everyone is going to be questioning their past and he can’t even know what they’ll go after since he can’t even remember most of it.

He’s just going to have to grit his teeth, deny everything but friendship and the bonds between lineys, maybe make a homophobic ass out of himself if he’s desperate, and just keep moving forward. Because what else can he do? He’s Kent Parson.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm new to writing so constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. You can find me on tumblr as crusherccme.


End file.
